


(my heart is) A Church of Scars

by Kangofu_CB



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, AmeriHawk, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, M/M, Scars, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Steve Rogers is Good at Hugs, amerihawk week on tumblr, funny how that works out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 07:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: “Steve.”  It was a gentle correction, but implacable all the same.  “It’s Steve. And you never belonged to Loki because I’m pretty sure you belong to me.”  He reached for the buttons at his throat and began loosening them, revealing pale collarbones and smooth, hairless skin, but before the stripping could get really risque - and some distant part of Clint was deeply disappointed - Steve stopped unbuttoning the shirt and instead pulled the edges of it aside, so that his right shoulder was showing.A right shoulder that was marred by a very distinctive, starburst-shaped scar.The kind of scar an arrow left.Clint’s vision narrowed to pinpricks, and he could feel himself panting in short, choppy bursts.In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, Clint finds something to hold on to.





	(my heart is) A Church of Scars

**Author's Note:**

> For Amerihawk week on Tumblr. I honestly love the idea of this pairing so much and there is just not. enough. fic. 
> 
> And I love soulmate AUs. So here we are, wallowing. 
> 
> Day 7 was a free-for-all, which is good, since this didn't really fit any of the other themes. (Also, yeah, I posted a day early because I have to work on Day 7, sorry all.)

Clint’s skin was pristine.

 

He had been shot, stabbed, burned, tortured, and, on one memorable occasion, had splattered half a pan of hot oil across his torso because he’d thought that frying bacon shirtless was a smart choice. 

 

Despite all of that, he didn’t have a single mark on him.  No blemishes anywhere on his body.

 

He knew what it meant.  Had known, in fact, since he was nine years old and he’d fallen out of a tree and the wound on his forehead - which had required six stitches and two extra hospital staff to hold him down to close - hadn’t left the faintest mark.

 

Clint had a soulmate out there somewhere.

 

Not that it mattered.  After he’d run away, and joined the circus, and lied for his brother and been picked up by the authorities and offered a choice that wasn’t really anything like a choice, it had just become another exploitable trait. Like his marksmanship and his hand-to-hand and his ability to weasel his way out of almost any unfortunate situation. 

 

He was a trained killer with a lack of identifiable marks. 

 

Which was the part that  _ sucked _ .

 

In his early twenties, after ten years of circus shenanigans - during which he’d fallen off of more high places and scraped more knees and gotten more stitches than he could count - after his  _ memorable _ departure from Barney’s company with two new wounds in his shoulders that healed up without a trace, and after a few years with S.H.I.E.L.D. which included a fair number of stabbings and a couple of unfortunate-but-not-deadly gunshot wounds, Clint had felt  _ sorry _ for the unfortunate bastard who was attached to his soul.  The poor fucker had to be wondering just  _ what in the fuck _ they’d been saddled with, covered with scars that Clint wasn’t sure he could even  _ identify _ if he saw them. 

 

Maybe the arrows, but the rest? Doubtful. 

 

No, the problem was the lack of reciprocal marks. Soulmates shared scars - his were disappearing onto some other poor, unfortunate soul, but he wasn’t receiving any in exchange.

 

Clint  _ literally _ didn’t have a mark on his body.  

 

Everyone had scars.  Everyone had cut themselves making dinner or fallen off their bike or had bacne or  _ something _ \- something to show they were living, breathing human beings who were vulnerable and fragile. 

 

Everyone but Clint. 

 

Now, at thirty-four, Clint felt less sorry for some unknown someone he had never and probably would never meet, and more sorry for himself.  He was an anomaly, and a pitiable one at that. If not for the fact that he was so super-classified the President probably didn’t know he even existed, he’d likely be some miserable sucker in a lab somewhere being studied endlessly. 

 

Soulmates weren’t unheard of in the world.  They weren’t even all that unusual. Something like thirty percent of the population had one.  But Clint had never heard of anyone who didn’t get their own scars  _ or _ anyone else’s.  He’d asked around, done some tentative research, and then, disheartened, dropped the subject and moved on.

 

So, Clint couldn’t collect scars.  Big deal. It just made his job easier in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s opinion - undercover work especially.  But even the little things, like injuries, barely got catalogued by his superiors, because even if they were serious, the resultant reminders disappeared.  

 

The only other person that Clint knew who didn’t have any scars was Natasha and that-

 

That was something else altogether.  Something to do with whatever they’d done to her in the Red Room, some kind of augmentation that made her who she was.  It wasn’t a missing part of her soul and-

 

And Clint was missing a part of his, which was maybe what made it easy for him to do the things he did.

 

Later, he wondered if it had made him an easy target.  If it wasn’t his  _ heart _ that had been vulnerable.

 

Of course that was all  _ after _ .

 

After Fury interrupted the literal  _ only _ vacation he’d ever taken, after he witnessed the actual God of Thunder be unable to lift his hammer, after he watched an alien nearly destroy a small town in New Mexico.

 

After Fury had set him against Natasha  _ again _ , forever and endlessly testing the two of them and their loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D., and to each other. 

 

Before all of that, he’d just been Clint Barton, callsign Hawkeye, a Level 7 Agent, highly respected and capable in the field and a complete disaster at his personal life. 

 

Before the Avengers Initiative.

 

Before Captain Goddamn America was defrosted.

 

Before the fucking Tesseract.

 

Clint sighed as he rested his head in his hands and bleakly contemplated the future.

 

Natasha had been to see him - of course she had.  Given him motivational speeches about red in her ledger that Clint was supposed to do  _ what _ with, he didn’t know.  She’d been a selectively trained and psychologically abused assassin.  He’d spearheaded an alien invasion.

 

It wasn’t exactly apples to oranges. 

 

And yes, he’d - eventually - helped fight off the alien invasion.  Once Natasha had hit him really hard in the head.

 

_ Cognitive recalibration _ his ass. 

 

Whatever, it had worked, even though he’d come so damn close to killing her he could taste bile when he thought about it.

 

And now he just - what? Had to learn to live with the fact that he’d - he and a small group of people who were now  _ dead _ \- had nearly brought about the destruction of the human race?  How many people were dead because of him? 

 

Too fucking many, that’s how many. 

 

Banging at his door dragged Clint out of his own head and into the present.  The present where Stark Tower was structurally unstable, Tony Stark had nearly killed himself to fly a nuke into an  _ interdimensional portal _ and then they’d gone for schwarma afterwards.  The present where Loki was gone - fucked off to Asgard with his weird-ass brother where, Nat had assured him, he would be paying for his psychotic attempt to take over the world for a long time to come - and where Clint hadn’t even gotten to  _ punch _ the guy.

 

Though blowing Loki off of his alien chariot had been sort-of satisfying, he guessed. 

 

Currently, Clint was still staying at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.  Was, in fact, still in the infirmary room he’d been on lockdown in until they’d ascertained that Loki’s control of his brain was gone.  That he was  _ safe _ .

 

He was in the room by choice, this time, and not by force.

 

But Clint wasn’t sure he’d ever be safe again. For himself or anyone else.

 

So when the door opened and Steve Rogers - sorry, _Captain_ _fucking_ _America_ \- was standing there, Clint figured his reprieve was over. 

 

Clint was- god, he was so fucking  _ grateful _ to the man.  Clint had caused all of these problems, had damn near killed Fury and Maria Hill, had shown Loki all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s weakest points, but when Nat had shown up with Clint in tow and nodded at Rogers, the other man had accepted him on her word,  _ trusted  _ him.  Clint had done his best not to disappoint.

 

He’d idolized Captain America growing up - who hadn’t?

 

And Steve in person was even better than in the history books.  A steady, commanding presence and a tactical mind, sure. Definitely willing to throw himself headlong into danger and damn the consequences. But, under the Captain persona and the duty and the honor, Clint caught little bits of the his personality - a little bit kind but a whole lot snarky and unwilling to take anyone’s shit and just about perfect and honestly-

 

Well, it had been an honor. 

 

But it was time to face the music.

 

“I’m sorry,” Clint blurted out, before Steve could even speak.

 

Steve, who had already looked- something.  His brow was pinched and his mouth was pursed and he was looking Clint over like he was sizing him up and Clint-

 

Clint knew he could never measure up.

 

“What?”  Bewilderment took over Steve’s expression.  Clint noticed he had an old, faded scar that ran from his hairline down to his eyebrow, where it created a little divot in the dark blonde hair.

 

Even Captain America had scars, where Clint had none.

 

“I didn’t- I wasn’t-” Clint blew out a frustrated breath.  “I didn’t want this to happen.”

 

And Steve.  Steve looked  _ crushed _ .

 

“I couldn’t stop it,” Clint rushed to explain, wanting more than anything to wash the disappointment off of Steve’s face and knowing that nothing he said was going to make that happen.  It didn’t stop the words from tumbling out of his mouth or him from trying. “I didn’t want- Loki was just  _ there _ and he said I had heart, but I think it’s because I’m broken, there’s something  _ wrong _ with me and then- and then I was just  _ his _ .”  Clint was horrified to hear his voice crack at the end and to feel his eyes burning.  He squeezed them shut and took a deep, shuddering breath. “But I didn’t  _ want _ it.” 

 

When Clint opened his eyes again, when he felt like he could swallow around the lump in his throat, Steve was crouched on the floor in front of him, watching him.  He looked so  _ sad _ that Clint would have done anything to make him feel better, which was an odd way to feel about a virtual stranger, but it was so mixed up with the feelings of guilt and regret and  _ shame _ that Clint couldn’t untangle it anyway. 

 

“Am I being fired?” Clint asked, finally, into strained silence.  “Or, like, beaten up? ‘Cause I mean I deserve it, so, y’know, whatever you’re- whatever you think.”  He took another of the unsteady breaths and tried to brace himself. “I’m ready.”

 

Steve actually  _ flinched _ .

 

And if Captain America was flinching away from what he was here to do it had to be bad.

 

Right?

 

Clint sucked in another attempt at air. 

 

“Oh my god,” Steve said, sounding horrified.  “Oh my god, that’s not- no. Clint, no.” He reached out, but that made  _ Clint _ flinch, so Steve withdrew and settled back on his heels, his hands clenched together in his lap.

 

“I’m not here to punish you,” Steve said softly. 

 

“You’re… not?”  Now Clint was flat-footed and bewildered.  If Steve wasn’t here to tell him he couldn’t be an Avenger anymore, to tell him he wasn’t wanted, wasn’t  _ needed _ , then Clint couldn’t imagine what he  _ was _ here for. 

 

“No, I’m not.”  Steve looked more sure of himself, some of the determination Clint had glimpsed on the battlefield peeking through.  “And you’re not Loki’s.”

 

Clint flinched again, looking away, towards the small, reinforced glass window on the far wall from his bunk. “No, I.  I know that. Now. I know that, now. But- I was.”

 

There was another long pause.

 

“He took you,” Steve finally allowed, “but you never belonged to him.”

 

Clint blinked at him in confusion, but instead of explaining Steve methodically unbuttoned the left cuff of his sleeve and began rolling it up. When he reached his elbow, he held his forearm up in Clint’s line of sight, displaying a nearly-perfect circular scar that looked remarkably like-

 

Teeth.

 

It looked like teeth.

 

Specifically, it looked like an exact twin of the still-healing bite mark on  _ Clint’s _ left forearm, the physical reminder of his fight with Natasha.

 

“What the fuck?” Clint breathed, reaching to touch before snatching his hand back and rubbing across the scabbed and still-sore matching mark on his own arm.  “What the  _ fuck _ , Captain?”

 

“Steve.”  It was a gentle correction, but implacable all the same.  “It’s Steve. And you never belonged to Loki because I’m pretty sure you belong to me.”  He reached for the buttons at his throat and began loosening them, revealing pale collarbones and smooth, hairless skin, but before the stripping could get really risque - and some distant part of Clint was deeply disappointed - Steve stopped unbuttoning the shirt and instead pulled the edges of it aside, so that his right shoulder was showing.

 

A right shoulder that was marred by a very distinctive, starburst-shaped scar.

 

The kind of scar an arrow left.

 

Clint’s vision narrowed to pinpricks, and he could feel himself panting in short, choppy bursts.

 

This wasn’t- 

 

It hadn’t even been on his  _ radar _ .  Clint had given up on the soulmate situation years ago, alone and unmarked-

 

“But I don’t have any scars,” he blurted, his head reeling with the implications.

 

Steve gave a mirthless chuckle as he rolled his right sleeve up, and now Clint could see several uniform, perfectly straight lines marching horizontally up his forearm from just above the wrist.

 

From a badly-executed op in Afghanistan, he thought dully.  He’d been captured and held for seventy-two excruciating hours before Clint had been able to escape. 

 

Oh  _ god _ , Captain America’s body was a roadmap of Clint’s mistakes. 

 

“I know what that’s like,” Steve admitted, settling the second cuff into place and seemingly unbothered by the expanse of chest he was showing.  “Never had any myself, growin’ up. Figured I was alone in the world, some kind of freak. Went into the ice without a mark on me. Woke up with more than I cared to admit to.”

 

Clint grimaced.  “I’m so, so sorry.”

 

Steve shrugged.  “Wasn’t so bad. Meant I wasn’t alone.”  He paused. “I was… even when I had nothing, I had Bucky, and then, well, I didn’t have him anymore.  Didn’t seem such a sacrifice, going down with the plane. Wasn’t leaving anyone behind.”

 

It took Clint a moment to realize that the small, wounded noise he heard had come from his own throat.

 

Being a soulmate was  _ weird _ .

 

“Anyway,” Steve continued, mercifully ignoring the embarrassing sound Clint had just made, “I suspect that, if you did a thorough inventory, you’d find a new mark or two somewhere.  Those alien guns packed a punch.”

 

Clint blinked.

 

And blinked some more.

 

He hadn’t- he hadn’t even  _ checked _ .  Other than to assess his own injuries, which were minor and easily ignored, he hadn’t bothered to see if there were any lasting marks because there never were.

 

“Or,” Steve said, and now he was smirking at Clint’s confused silence, at the obvious way he was wracking his brain, “I could check for you.”

 

If there had been an accompanying eyebrow waggle to go with the sudden change in tone, Clint wouldn’t have been surprised.  Well, he would have been, but only because it was  _ Steve Rogers _ , and not because of the words themselves.  The implication was clear.

 

“Steve, are you  _ propositioning _ me?” Clint finally found his voice, and with it, a bit of his own moxie. 

 

“Well, not  _ here _ ,” Steve clarified, and glanced meaningfully up at the small camera in the corner, which was ostensibly turned off, but which Clint was well aware could easily be turned back on, if it was really inactive at all.  “I’ve got private quarters that are surveillance free. We could… talk.”

 

If they were going to Steve’s private quarters to  _ talk _ , Clint would eat his shoe. 

 

“Alright,” Clint agreed, after a disgustingly short amount of thought. “Let’s chat.”

 

Steve grinned, bright and beautiful and perhaps a little bit predatory as he smoothly rose to his feet and offered Clint a hand.  

 

Not that Clint needed one, he was just sitting on the edge of the bunk and he wasn’t even injured.  

 

Clint took it anyway, felt his calloused palms slide against Steve’s equal-but-differently calloused hand and that was-

 

That was something. 

 

A rush of warmth that could almost be simple attraction, but which lingered and coiled in his chest, settling there like a banked fire, waiting to be reignited.  Clint shivered.

 

When he could have let go, Steve simply turned his hand, twisting it from a helping grip to interlocked fingers, tugging Clint behind him and out of the room.  He led with a certain grace, for all of his size, light on his feet and sure, and Clint found he was perfectly content to follow Steve anywhere.

 

Literally and figuratively.

 

The warmth between them didn’t abate, either, just simmered quietly beneath the surface.

 

He suddenly realized why, when soulmates met, they often took an extended leave of absence. 

 

It wasn’t just the sexual attraction, either, though that was there.

 

(It was really, really there.)

 

At the moment, though, Clint just wanted to- to wrap himself up in Steve and never leave.  Just smother himself in everything Steve Rogers, an intense and innate desire to touch and feel and  _ learn _ the other man in ways that no one else had or would. 

 

He kind of wanted a hug.

 

That was weird right?

 

Clint didn’t generally enjoy being touched.  Enough of the touches in his life had preceded or flat-out induced pain that he wasn’t super keen on other people’s hands on his person.

 

Steve’s hands were, apparently, a different story altogether.

 

As evidenced by the fact that Clint was still willingly holding his hand as they rode the elevator up to the residential floors, where Steve obviously maintained some sort of living space.  Clint had thought, based on a very few conversations with Natasha, that Steve was living full-time in the Tower. Evidently, that hadn’t been totally correct. 

 

Clint was still thinking about the strange phenomenon that was their fingers tangled together and the way it felt like a direct conduit to the warm place that was building in his chest when Steve key-coded them into a small apartment. 

 

It was better than military barracks, but not by much. 

 

Small and mostly impersonal, Clint noted as he glanced around, taking in the studio-like area - bed, couch, kitchenette, television.  A small door that probably led to a smaller bathroom. It smelled like Steve though, like he’d been staying there for at least a few days, which he probably had, and there were a few things scattered about that made it subtly his domain.  His shield was propped near the door, where he could easily grab it in a hurry, but opposite of where it opened, so no one else could snatch it. There was a stack of notebooks and pencils on the small table by the couch, and an electronic dock near the television, just waiting for a music player to be plugged in.  The bedding was rumpled, like it had been hastily pulled into place.

 

It was wonderfully humanizing, seeing those messy sheets.

 

Steve gave him the few seconds it took Clint to assess his living space, watching as Clint took it all in, and met his gaze when he was done.  He made an aborted grasping motion with his free hand before letting it drop halfway down, frozen in indecision.

 

“Can I just-”  Steve’s hand lifted again, mutely reaching for Clint.

 

The request wasn’t entirely clear, but Clint figured he was pretty alright with whatever Steve was asking for.  He swallowed and gave a short, sharp nod.

 

Tugging on their joined hands, Steve pulled Clint closer to him and into his arms and it was exactly the hug Clint had been craving and didn’t know he needed. Like something he’d been waiting for his entire life. He relaxed into it, his whole body going slack the way it sometimes did after he got home from a successful mission and the adrenaline was burned off and all that was left was Clint, usually in bare feet and old sweats.

 

Like coming  _ home _ .

 

He was just the slightest bit taller than Steve, which Clint found incongruent and hysterical.  Steve -  _ Captain America _ \- was so ridiculously larger than life, especially wielding a shield and barking out orders, but here in this tiny living room, tangled together, they were almost even.  Steve’s shoulders were broader and his waist was more narrow and he was a million times  _ better _ than Clint in every possible way, but physically they were well-matched. 

 

The emotion humming between them was something else altogether, buzzing just under Clint’s skin and making him simultaneously more relaxed than he could ever have imagined and antsy for something  _ more _ , something  _ else _ that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

 

Then Steve’s hand slid just under his shirt and slipped against his skin and  _ that _ , that was the more, the something else, Steve’s skin on his skin-

 

Steve’s fingers skated across his left flank and over flesh that felt indescribably different from the rest of the skin on his back and Clint couldn’t help the choked-off noise of surprise that he made.

 

“Whassat?” he muttered, directly into Steve’s shoulder, where he’d been busy memorizing the way the other man  _ smelled _ , as though that wasn’t fucking strange in and of itself.

 

There was a thoughtful hum, and then Steve leaned back far enough to glance around Clint’s shoulder, dragging the soft cotton t-shirt he was wearing up and out of the way.

 

“Come see,” Steve said, instead of answering the question, and stepped back to pull Clint towards the tiny bathroom in the hall. 

 

Clint felt the loss of his body heat and touch like an ache.

 

In the bathroom, Steve flicked on the light - harsh and blue-white and nothing at all like the warmth of Steve’s arms and, frankly, it reminded Clint just a bit too much of the blue light of the scepter.  He shuddered but held his ground. Steve reached for his hip, turning him so he could see his left side in the mirror and gestured.

 

Taking the hint, Clint reached behind his neck and pulled his shirt up and over his head.

 

The scar on his back was the furthest thing from  _ pretty _ .  It started low on the left side of his torso and traced up and across, nearly to his right shoulder, flat and shiny, while the surrounding skin looked almost like it had been burned or melted.

 

“Holy shit,” Clint whispered.  He reached for his own back, able to get his fingers about halfway up the scar, able to feel the difference in texture.  “Holy  _ shit _ ,” he said again, louder, as he met Steve’s eyes in the mirror.  “How are you not  _ dead _ ?” he blurted out.

 

The scar traced deeply over his spine, and Clint was relatively certain it would have,  _ should _ have, killed anyone who wasn’t Steve Rogers. 

 

“Supersoldier,” Steve reminded him, eyes crinkling with a suppressed smile.  “There’s probably a few more I didn’t even notice, but I figured that one was there.  Hurt like a bitch.’

 

And now that Clint was looking, he could see that there were other, smaller places along his ribs and biceps, that same burnt-flesh appearance, where the alien guns had grazed Steve during the fight.

 

“Jesus Christ, Rogers, you gotta be more careful,” Clint twisted in front of the mirror again, still looking at his back.

 

Of all the reactions he’d been expecting, laughter wasn’t on the list.

 

“I gotta be more careful?” Steve asked.  “Really? Me? Are you serious right now?”  He reached for the remaining buttons on his shirt - the few he hadn’t already undone in the infirmary - and stripped the shirt of his shoulders and Clint was-

 

Well, fuck, Clint was only human, and he was momentarily distracted by all that naked flesh.  

 

Steve was  _ ripped _ , for shit’s sake. 

 

His second perusal brought a dose of reality with it.  In addition to the matching arrow scars on both shoulders, Steve’s body was a detailed description of every terrible thing that had ever happened to Clint, and there were numerous terrible things.  He reached out, hesitant and unsure of himself, but Steve just watched him steadily, so Clint went ahead and touched.

 

“Afghanistan, 2003,” Clint offered, as his fingertips trailed over the lines he’d already seen downstairs, running along Steve’s right forearm.  “This too,” he added, touching the jagged scar over his right hip. That had happened as they’d subdued him when he’d been caught. The marks along the arm had been agonizingly intentional.  Steve shivered under Clint’s hand, and his skin broke out in goosebumps, but otherwise he didn’t move. Just stood silently and watched Clint touching him. There was a round, puckered mark a few inches to the left of Steve’s navel that Clint knew would have a larger, sister mark on his back.  Gutshot. Clint had been lucky there was air evac nearby and that he hadn’t lost any major organs. “Albania, ‘99. Close range, small caliber.” 

 

Steve grunted, a kind of pained noise that sounded a lot like the one Clint had made in the infirmary when Steve had talked about crashing the  _ Valkyrie _ .

 

There were many more smaller, less identifiable marks.  Cuts that he’d had stitched, grazes he barely remembered.  The two shoulder marks, though. Those were formative. He trailed his fingers across them, resting his thumbs in the hollows they created.  “My brother,” Clint started, his voice cracking. He had to clear his throat before he could continue. “Arrows. Long time ago.’

 

Back when The Amazing Hawkeye was just a two-bit circus act in a traveling criminal enterprise.

 

Clint hadn’t even known, really, until he’d followed Barney and Trick out one night, had intervened when he should have left well enough alone. 

 

Steve dragged Clint into an embrace, and all that skin was pressed warm and solid against Clint’s chest.  It was at once too much and not nearly enough.

 

They ended up on Steve’s S.H.I.E.L.D-supplied bed, too small for men as large as they were, but they made it work, their legs tangled together and burrowed up as close as they could get.  Steve was still wearing his jeans, which was probably less than ideal, while Clint was in a pair of sweatpants that predated most of the junior agents. Neither of them had bothered to put their shirts back on. They’d done very little talking - surprisingly little, considering all that had happened in the last few days, and all the history between them that was going unspoken - but Clint was deeply content to lie in bed and trace his fingers over his own history on Steve’s skin, while Steve did the same to him.

 

When he fell into the first deep, dreamless sleep he’d had since New Mexico - or maybe  _ ever _ , he wasn’t sure - Clint thought there might be something to this soulmate thing after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the always-fabulous ClaraxBarton, who also (metaphorically) held my hand and petted me while I cried literal tears. 
> 
> Timelines and facts only loosely checked with MCU canon events. 
> 
> And on that note, I used Marvel official stats for the boys here, which puts Clint at 6'3" and Steve at 6'2" (I know that's not MCU canon, but I like tol!Clint sorrynotsorry)


End file.
